Conflict and Coffee in Burundi 125An analysis of the framework regulating land use illustrates the disorder-
ly and exclusive character of government approaches. The Land Law, a set of
rules governing the use of land, is no longer in use. The Act, No 1/0088 dated
1986, which creates the Burundian Land law was intended to indicate differ-
ent rights linked to national land ownership. Close examination of the act
reveals that it does not include clauses that protect land against degradation
through erosion, over-exploitation, and inappropriate farming practices that
would result in decreased productivity. Furthermore, rather than complement
the Forest Act, the Land Act, which was issued one and a half years later,
serves to limit the application of the former. In fact, competencies for deci-
sions regarding forest transfers or concessions are conflicting. Moreover, the
Forest Act ignores traditional rights and habits. The following strategic guide-
lines were set up by the government of Burundi through the Ministry of Land
and the Environment in order to redress the limitations:
revision of the Land Act with the aim to protect soil against erosion, pol-
lution, unsustainable farming practices, integrated planning of soil use and
to combat desertification;
application of the Swamp Master Plan that provides guidelines on their
management;
inventory of soil use;
introduction of soil use cards; and
adoption of soil conservation measures.The strategies are intended to improve land use and condition. However, they
ignore traditional rights and experience. The preparation of conservation
blueprints takes little account of the concerns of the population.
The management of the cash crop sector has not been inclusive or trans-
parent either. In the coffee and tea subsectors, the ruling party (UPRONAI's
'mobilization of the population' characterised government campaigns. As in
many parts of the developing world that rely on cash crop foreign exchange
receipts, it is against the law to uproot cash crops because of dissatisfaction
with compensation for harvests. This made it even worse for the rural popu-
lation caught between the need to make use of the land to fulfil more imme-
diate needs and a law that effectively left them without an alternative.
The Ministry of Agriculture carries out cash crop management through
specialised government institutions, that is ISABU and OCIBU, the state-run
tea and coffee parastatals respectively. Actions aimed at improving the coffee
quality and quantity have been put in place since the post-colonial period,
that is the establishment of tree nurseries, plant distribution, insect control,
as well as installation of local treatment facilities.
Each coffee 'campaign' has been injecting large outlays of money into the
production areas, but the distribution has been unequal from one region to